The bench press is an exercise of the upper body. For bodybuilding purposes, it is used to strengthen the pectorals, deltoids, and triceps. While the person lies on his or her back, the person performing the bench press lowers a weight to the level of the chest, then pushes it back up until the arm is straight and the elbows are locked. The exercise focuses on the development of the pectoralis major muscle as well as other supporting muscles including the anterior deltoids, serratus anterior, coracobrachialis, scapulae fixers, trapezii, and the triceps. The bench press is one of the three lifts in the sport of powerlifting and is used extensively in weight training, bodybuilding, and other types of fitness training to develop the chest.
In weight training, training to failure is to repeat an exercise movement (such as the bench press) to the point of momentary muscular failure. Contrary to widespread belief, this is not the point at which the individual thinks they cannot complete any more repetitions, but rather the first repetition that fails due to inadequate muscular strength. By training to failure, one fatigues enough of the muscle fibers to prevent lifting a particular weight.
While training to failure is generally considered a good method for increasing both muscle strength and mass, it also increases the risk of injury especially injury caused by the loss of control of the weight. When a person is using free weights this risk can increase, especially in the case of a bench press when the lifter is raising and lower the weight near his head and neck and usually must return the barbell and weights to a rack that is positioned directly above his head and neck.
Because of the risk associated with lifting to muscle failure, it is generally advisable to perform such exercises with the assistance of a second person often termed a “spotter.” A spotter however is not always available and people often exercise alone. The dangers of bench pressing alone have been made ever more clear in recent years with such high profile injuries such as the one to University of Southern California running back Stafon Johnson who suffered a serious throat injury in 2009.
The prior art discloses various safety devices and or mechanical substitutes for spotters. Many such devices, however, are integral to the weight bench, require elaborate hydraulic or counterweight mechanisms or simply fail to provide the needed protection for the weight lifters head, face and neck areas.
For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,480 to Lennox et al., discloses a bench press exercise apparatus having horizontal safety bars designed to prevent injury, however, the safety bars are large and integral to the apparatus and only provide safety if the person exercising lowers the bench.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,799,673 to Selle discloses a bench press safety apparatus including safety supports and weight unloading shelves, which are laterally adjustable to permit alignment with weight discs on a barbell supported on the safety supports. Like the Lennox, Selle is also large and integral to the weight lifting bench.
Several other patents, e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,249,726, 4,368,884, 4,441,425, 4,635,930 5,273,506, 6,746,379 and 6,685,601 disclose bench press safety apparatuses, however, each suffers from similar shortcomings as those disclosed in Lennox and Selle in that they either are large or cumbersome, integrated into and specially designed to fit particular weight lifting benches, require complicated hydraulic or pulley assistance, or do not provide adequate protection for the lifter's head, face and/or neck.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome these and other shortcomings of current bench press safety apparatuses and to provide a lightweight compact and easily portable safety device, which can be used on a wide range of different sized weight lifting benches.